08/12/2025 Educational Services Committee Meeting

001And uh just since there's nobody from the public here to speak, we'll go right to the director's update. >> All right. Thank you so much. This is the second month with Google Meet, so my goal is not to accidentally end the meeting when I try to stop sharing my screen. So hopefully that will be successful. Um just a few updates for us as we start the school year. Um the first um topic that I had on here was our August teacher development professional development update. Um we are embarking on two very busy weeks here in the district. The first week um is the week of August, let me double check 18th where we welcome our new teachers into the district. Um they have four days of uh essentially uh informational sessions and meet and greets

002with a lot of different people throughout the district. They do an introduction to our administration team. Um they have time with their mentors, so time to meet their mentor, get some questions answered. Um at the elementary level, they'll be doing um math and literacy training on the new curriculum materials that we have. In secondary level, they'll be doing some AVID training and some behavioral expectation training. And then everyone gets the opportunity to do uh our safety training with the police department. Um Skyward training as well as an overview of our benefits. Uh Sarah has specialed team together for the NBCI training. So all of our staff who are special ed get a full day of NBCI training during that first week. >> Training following the money, all of the fun things. Exactly. Um and then

003we have the full staff training the week of August 25th. It's a five-day week. The teachers essentially have two work days and then there are three days um of professional development and staff meeting time. So every building has their own staff meeting time planned. Um we do a full staff safety training with the police department. Um the elementary will continue with literacy training. Um I'm excited that we'll be able to share some math pacing guides. That was something that came out of our data dig where we wanted to ensure that our staff was um staying paced to the curriculum. And then we'll also be doing some Ames web training which is the new assessment piece that we're using. We used literacy last year for K3 or 4K3 but we'll be using literacy and math uh

004K5 throughout the district. So those teachers will have some additional aim training as well. Um at the secondary level um they are working together to work on some AVID training specifically focusing on the wicker strategies and then as Sarah alluded to um there will be some compass care training which is the uh organization we use to Medicaid bill and re get some reimbursement for services there and then she has a boot camp uh training plan for all special ed staff just to update on processes as well. Um so that will be a very busy week. I know you do get an invitation to attend the full staff um um meeting and I believe that will be the afternoon of August 26th, but I will let Lynn Linskins formally and Jared formally invite you to that

005as well. Um any questions about those first two weeks back? >> No. >> All right. Um the second piece that I wanted to update you about is some programming changes that we have um at the middle school as it relates to our dual language program. Um as you know in the past we've had a kindergarten through 8th grade dual language program. Um our students start at Shurers um where they're in a classroom where they're learning both English and Spanish. We have traditionally continued that through the middle school where we had a dual language teacher who taught social studies and science in Spanish and also taught some SLA so Spanish language arts. Um unfortunately that uh teacher resigned and we are having a very very challenging time replacing her. That is an area across the state

006of Wisconsin. Dual language teachers are very very very difficult to find and we have been very lucky to be staffed at the elementary level as well as we have and be staffed at the middle school level. Um we still have the job posted. I check it probably every other day. Um I did send an email blast out to anyone in the state of Wisconsin who's in weekend who has a dual language license um and did not get um any interest in the position. So, at this point, we're planning for the start of the school year. Um, what we are planning to do and for one year only is to work with the students who are in the dual language program and offer them Spanish world language instruction. So, they will have a teacher where they

007will be taking a Spanish course. Um, Ashley is working to correlate the Spanish course to where their Spanish skills are, and those will likely be high school level courses that they'll be taking. Um the science and social studies will be taught by our English science and social studies teacher at the middle school level. Um but so they will continue to have their English and science and social studies and they will continue to have Spanish through a world language course but it will not be considered a dual language programming um like the state how the state defines it. Um our plan is uh to continue with stamp testing and our stamp testing is what we use to um assess their Spanish language skills and then any students who are English language learners would still continue with

008their access testing which helps us assess their English skills. So we'll be able to monitor their progress um with this new type of programming. Um, a couple of steps that we still need to take, Ashley, is working through that, um, Spanish curriculum to make sure it's a nice match for the students who are coming in. We'll need to communicate with families about this. Um, and the other thing that we will do is we will still continue to recruit for that dual language position. My hope is that this is a one-year fix and that we'll have able been able to recruit someone um, for the following school year. But at this time, it's kind of our best approach to be able to meet the needs of those kids. They're still continuing with their Spanish skills. They're

009still continuing their English skills. Um, but at this time, we don't have a dual language teacher with that. So, um, that staffing is really can be really challenging and honestly, if we were to come across a great candidate this time, I'd be thrilled and we would, uh, we would engage with that person and hopefully be able to bring them on for the start of the year. But given that it's August 12th and we don't have anyone yet, we just need to have a backup plan that will support our students needs. So, um, huge shout out to Jason and Ashley because I know that they have been working hard to find a person and also to be creative in problem solving that as well. Um, and we were able to recently bring on a multilingual language

010teacher who also has that Spanish world language license and so we were able to staff that um, from within. Any questions about that change? doing. >> Jenny, when you say you offer the Spanish world language instruction, is that mean the student has the option to take it or is there or is that something that would we we would require? >> That's a really good question. My assumption is is that folks will want to engage in that. Um, if there was a family that said, "Nope, at this time we don't want to continue." We've never forced someone to continue in our dual language program. Um, so we would not require them to take that. But that's a really good question and something I actually hadn't thought about. Thank you. Jenny, about how many uh kids does

011this involve? That's a really good question. I'm going to toss that one to Ashley. >> I would say a little over 60. >> Yeah. Like high high teens per grade level up to 20 per grade level. Yeah. >> Okay. Good question. >> Okay. >> There's another question here. Yeah, >> David. Um they have to have a license, dual language license, right? >> Yes. I'm saying this because of my work with DPI. I just want >> Can you hire someone who's working on one? >> Yes, we can. >> Um, and we actually are really excited because I will uh Ashley for just a second. When she became licensed as dual language teacher, she went through um Edgewood and it was a very rigorous course. Um we are now able to work with CISA. Um, CIS 2

012offers something called the class program where we're able to support the dual language teacher um, in the classroom while they're working on their licensing pieces and they work through online modules and it is also very rigorous and prepares the student well. But at this point there are more options than there used to be to be able to do that. But we certainly can ask for a license, a provisional license, I believe it's called. Um, Margaret would correct me and tell me exactly what it's called. >> One year. >> Yep. and then they just have to show that they're making progress towards that. Um, and that's something license with stipulations. There it is. Um, and so we are we would be happy to engage with someone who would like to do that as well. Um, but

013we haven't found that person yet either. So, good question. >> Okay. >> All right. And then I had a third uh topic here, the C curriculum course guide update. I know this is something that um is of interest to this committee um and is something that we're working through um with our teachers as well. Um it did pass the second read I believe in the July board meeting. Um and so we are moving forward with that process. I'm working with Melissa a little bit on format and where we're going to place these on the website. I'd like it to look um clean and I'd like it to match and I'd like it to be on a very obvious spot on our website. Um, I do anticipate this is going to be at least a full

014year-long process. Um, we've started meeting with departments to share what this is going to look like. I'll give a shout out to Mr. Bull. Last week, he had the opportunity to meet with several different departments to introduce the idea to them. Um, I am excited because we have a tech development that I think is really going to help support that process, but I'm going to save that because I know that the tech team is coming to present next month. Um but it's something that I believe will support our teachers in completing these without as much work as I maybe initially anticipated. Um I do have one concern which is just the length of the process. Um I know through the policy we have an additional committee created like a curriculum committee where uh the chair

015of ed services in this case Dan would be on that committee as well where we would bring all of these course guides through. we will have a lot of course guides to bring through because we're kind of starting from scratch. Um, and I'm playing with ideas where perhaps the um, curriculum materials that we've adopted in the last 24 36 months um, we might have a more expedited process with those just to be able to ensure that we are able to get through in a timely fashion. Um, but more to come on that and I'll work with uh, Dan on that piece and as well with Dr. work with that. But, um, I am hopeful that our new tech, uh, tool will help our teachers streamline the process a little bit and be able to, um,

016get those in front of the board in a quicker way. Um, but I did want to just give you a short update on that as well. >> Any questions? >> Yeah. Um, does this mean that the curriculum will be on the website as well to uh, for parents to peruse? >> Yep. We're looking at least a year before it's like all there and up and ready and has gone through the process. But that is the long-term goal. And I'd be happy to sit with you um at some point because I know that's been a process that we've worked through kind of with this committee since January about what that might look like and I can share you some examples of what other districts have done um and what we're planning on doing too. Um I'm

017pretty excited about it because I think that's a good next step. And I think um my initial uh hesitation because of the workload for the teachers has been lightened a little bit um with our tech team. So I'm happy to report that as well. >> That's great. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Um we have a couple of presentations B and C and we're going to go through those now. But after that uh Sam has to leave. So Sam >> I think I think I'll be good until the end of the meeting. I have to leave at 9:30, but I should be good to be here. >> So, we can keep it in this order. >> Yeah. Yeah. Good. And I do want to say that I do have Renee Alana joining us at 8:30

018um for that last discussion point if there's any questions that I might not be able to answer. Um so, just we can be aware of that. So, >> okay. All right. Well, let's move on to the student rounding report. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Um always want to start with gratitude. So thank you for your support of our really building a culture that we talked about as being student driven and data informed. And one component of that work uh last year was really thinking of ways how to elevate student voice and that's where this idea of studenting was was promoted. Uh last year Chris Mallaloy and I worked with stakeholders at every building including parents and students to execute a student wounding model and we talked to about 270 students total. We talked to uh

019students at grades three, six and 10 about their insights around reading. We talked to students at grades four, seven, and 11 about their insights around math. And then we talked to students at grades five, 8, and 12 kind of reflecting on on their experiences at that grade band elementary school and and thinking about next steps for them. It was our first attempt at student rallying and so we learned a lot and today we want to share some of those learnings with you. Um we always frame our conversations in the why, what and how. So hence our document here I want to read things to you but when I think about grounding ourselves in our why is really four things. One is to elevate the the voice of students. We wanted to gain insights from our

020students about math literacy and their preparation for next steps. We also wanted to build relationships with students and finally uh really using that data as part of a a complete data set uh really to u move forward continuous improvement. Chris is going to talk us through some of our what's and hows and and some of the data and then I'll close it out for us. >> Yeah. So when I think about the what we were just really letting the students try to tell their story instead of telling it for them. That's something we had read about and really kind of resonated with both Jason and I is to let them tell us how they feel about their math, their reading and their future plans. So we went about picking the students um and we made

021tried to make sure we were covering the students um proportionally to the students in our buildings. So making sure we had the correct percentage of students with disabilities. We had English learners. Um so some kids that you know we had to work little to communicate with but we had supports in the buildings for that as needed. Um students that were economically disadvantaged so that we could try to make sure that we were hearing all voices and not just the students that were taking certain classes. So that was one of the things we worked towards doing when we were setting it up. Um once we had those students selected, we sent the list to the building principles, leaders, and they looked at the list and let us know if there was any concerns like this student

022never comes to school. Let's pick a new one because we really wanted to get 30 students in each grade level. So they knew we were going to have a hard time with one or maybe a student that was very set in the routine and we were going to kind of wreck their day by bringing them in there. and maybe we'd have to look at doing that conversation differently and how we could go about it to make sure it worked for both us and the students. Um, once they had gone through those, uh, Jason had a letter sent home to the parents to let them know what we were doing and shared the questions we were asking because we had set questions. We asked all the kids to keep the conversations consistent and then the parents

023were informed of what we were doing and what we were asking. Um, and then the buildings were really great about working on like a system to pull the students in. Um, it was kind of like when you set aside like two, three full days in your schedule, like you dread the doing it, but then you start doing it and you love every moment of it. And that's really what it was for both Jason and I. I feel like I can talk, but boy, Jason can really talk. So, I was like, "Okay, we got to let people go back to class eventually." So, I don't know. I found a lot of joy in the process. I think that there was some things that didn't surprise me, but there were moments where I was like, "Well, I'm

024glad we had this conversation because we've heard from 10 different kids the exact same thing that I wouldn't have expected to hear." So, um I think it was a really worthwhile process and I would give up those days again and again just to let the kids tell us about things. Um the next part that was kind of the what and the how. Um we had like the rounding nuggets and that's kind of how we shared um back with the buildings like what were the things we were hearing over and over again. Like you know if we heard it one time it was different but if we heard the same thing five ten times um we wanted to make sure the buildings knew about it the good and the bad. And that is part of the

025document we shared back out with you guys. Um, a couple of them for me that resonated is I found it really really cool when we were in the M elementary school and we one of our questions is do you think math is fun? Like yes came out I think 29 out of 30 times which was very exciting to me. Yeah, it was um a little bit less math is fun when they were seniors and high school level. But the joy of learning for the elementary because I'm I come from teaching high school level like going to those little kids was just kind of a fun opportunity for me. Um they made me a little uncomfortable but I pushed through. Um and then another thing that I really loved hearing and this was pretty consistent like

026it was elementary and middle school especially. Is it okay to get an answer wrong? and they were like, "Yeah, because then you learn." And I just like I know that, right? Like as a teacher, you learn so much more when you get something wrong than if you already know the answer. But for them to recognize that, that was very cool to me to hear. Um, one of the things we did hear a lot from fifth graders, eighth graders, and you know, even the 12th grade was the nervousness about the next step. I'm leaving the elementary and now I have to go and have to see different teachers. But feeling like a lot of them felt like they were ready for that because the teachers were practicing like three minutes to get ready from English to

027math and like practicing those transitions. Middle school to high school, I feel like we felt a little more nervousness, you know, just a whole new building and you know, as kids get older, there's bigger worries in life. Um, but they really felt like the freshman experience that they had, I think it was called the freshman, they came to the high school, whatever the name of the thing was, those kids that had gone to that felt very prepared. kids that had not were a little bit more nervous because they hadn't been in the building. So, we talked about like making sure we talked to Jason about making sure that that we get more kids doing that if possible and how we could, you know, make sure that that's an opportunity that all kids can have. I

028turn over to Jason to share a few of his nuggets as well. >> Thank you. From the high school ends, I think some things that really stood out for me is that there's a huge divide that we saw in reading at the high school level that we didn't see at the elementary and middle. And what I mean by that is we found students that were passionate about reading and read all the time, all you know, all genres. And then we had the other side were students that kind of had to be forced to read, right? there was nothing in the middle. It was just passionate about reading or really just did it because they had to. So that was one thing that I that stood out for me. Um from a from a math uh

029perspective, what I found interesting is again there was this divide between students that really liked and appreciated collaboration and working as part of a team and then there was this other group of students that just wanted to be lectured too. That's that was just an interesting uh divide there. And then um from a from a ready for next standpoint, students were unanimously grateful for the work of all stakeholders at the high school, their teachers, their counselors, their administrators of really feeling prepared for whatever next was for them. Whether it was the military, whether it was college or the workforce, they felt ready for that next step and they were grateful for that. Um, from a from a just overall lens, uh, it was it was a great reminder, uh, that we really do have great

030students, right? The young people in our district are are great humans, great to talk to. They dealt with my terrible dad jokes. They even laughed at some of them. And so, just good humans, right? Just pleasant to talk to. The students were also in in general elementary, middle, and high school very appreciative of the work of the staff and understood the hard work that that goes into teaching and learning. Uh when we think about next steps, uh the data, the nuggets there, the summary u the patterns in the data have been shared with all building leaders. building leaders have taken a look at that data and used it as part of their data dig in the summer that we uh as asked buildings to do. Chris and I have and will continue just to review

031and revise the system. It was our first time. So, we want to make it as smooth as possible for all involved. And then this year, we're going to execute a similar plan, right? And uh get a second year of data. And so that's our next step. Any questions about student road? >> Well, thank you for doing this. This is important and I know the board I can speak for the board that the board really appreciates getting that perspective from the students. Uh I'm I'm just wondering about why the disparity between those two groups. Is this one group that just wants to get out of high school and get through their job versus, you know, the kids who are going to go on to college or >> the reading? Will it the interest in reading? And

032>> I I didn't I don't think I we saw a connection between my passion about reading and going to college or passionate about reading go going to the military. >> Okay. >> It was just interesting and I I don't know the root cause, but it was it was obvious the divide was there at the high school level for sure. >> Julie, thank you for the report. Could you walk us through how you conducted these um chats chats? >> Sure. Um so as Chris mentioned, we sent the list prior to buildings and uh so they helped us with the the system of calling I think every 12 minutes they had a student come to us for example. And so we had um all the questions that we had we put into a Google form. And so

033we were a partnership because one asked the questions and talked and the other was the recorder. And so we just took turns doing that and um recorder answers and then looked for patterns. >> Since it was these were individual conversations. >> Yes ma'am. >> Students. >> Thank you. You're welcome, >> Linda. >> So moving forward then you're going to take I shouldn't say it. Are you going to be taking the se some kids from that first group or a whole bunch of 270 new people? >> Yeah, Chris does a phenomenal job of randomizing that. So, I'm guessing there'll be some overlap. Okay. But not necessarily. >> And then I just uh for these questions and things and the answers, the responses that you put are just wonderful. um in the elementary the grade five when

034number four the students uh have ideas for supporting their transitions to middle school. Can those be extrapolated and then implemented coming moving forward or ho how would that how would that happen to give them a voice? >> Absolutely. Thank you. What we did was uh share some of those further insights with at the time the middle school principal Mr. Whitaker and the team there about some ideas straight from the mouths of our students about transitioning. >> We also shared those ideas with our elementary principles. So beyond that summary, we also followed up with some specific things that we heard as well. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Yeah. Great. Um so the high school map grade 11 uh number two says uh students care about what the classmates think about them. This care impacts

035their willingness to share answers and ask questions. Can you can you elaborate on what that what that looks like because that could be taken two different ways? >> Sure. uh students talked about the fact that they if they were confident in their answers or response, you know, from a question from the teacher, >> right? >> They're much more willing to share that answer without even being called on. And uh they were less confident in part because they were concerned about their classmates perspectives of their math knowledge. They were just less willing to to to offer up an answer. >> Okay. So, is that a cultural thing that perhaps maybe raises some concern that you have to try to make sure that kids feel comfortable being able to share? >> Absolutely. >> Um, yeah. And the

036other part about students opinions and collaborate collaborative work versus lecture format. Um you said it it w uh varies widely. I mean you have a large amount of kids on one side of this issue and large amount of kids on other side of this issue or >> Yeah. I would I would I would hesitant to guess, but it it felt like a 50-50 split, right? like students that really uh talked about their appreciation for sitting and getting, for lack of a better phrase, right? Being lectured, taking notes, being engaged in that way versus students that really enjoy being part of a collaborative group, less lecture, less taking those working as part of a group to figure out those answers or solutions. So, as folks that like to look at data, you're probably kind of curious

037about how each how each of those groups responded based on how well they performed in the class. >> Um, I'd be curious to know that, too. >> I also one thing that's for me was interesting see the progression or changed opinions over time, right? elementary students uh were, you know, I don't I don't think they cared if they had their answer right. Over time, you know, our high school students are much more aware of their surroundings and the impact of peer perspectives showed up. True. For sure. >> Okay, Julian. So going back to how you did this, I'm assuming you had prepared questions >> and was it also somewhat free flowing that you responded as they responded you asked follow-up questions that were kind of spontaneous or >> more of like explain more like if

038they said something that we found concerning. Can you we just Jason's favorite is can you tell me more about that like math is math is scary or you know reading is scary and they said yes can you tell me why? So we just made them explain more. I don't know that new questions came more of can you explain why you said that was the followup because we were trying to record it all. So we trying to be there was a lot of like yes no like filling it in. Um but then occasionally we would want them to explain if something was concerning to us and the way they responded. >> I don't know about everybody else but I'd be fascinated to see what questions you ask. Um but also so what is the expectation of

039how the building administration will use this information? >> I I think the main way we have asked or expected building leaders to use that is uh during the summer we really have created a process of data digging and and that leads to building goals being crafted. And so when we think about data digging, we really want our building uh leaders and their leadership teams to take a comprehensive look at data whether it's academic data, whether it's behavioral data, attendance data, student rounding data, uh staff or I'm sorry, student and parent engagement data. So we really have an expectation to really dig into all data sets that we have. We are data rich for sure and that being the foundation for conversations about school goals for the fourth coming year. >> Okay. Thank you. >> You're

040welcome. >> Okay. Any other questions? >> Um yeah, I have one. Um so uh 11th grade math uh students number four students did not appreciate the use of AP videos to clip the classroom. Can you build out what that means? There are some not all AP courses where Chris probably speak more eloquently than I but there are videos available from AP to support the learning and some of our instructors use that in a flip model. And the flip model is where the expectation is for students to take a look at those videos at home. That's kind of the homework. And then be ready to uh engage in conversations and questions about the learning in the classroom. And and some of those students said that they didn't appreciate that. >> Okay. To kind of go on

041that, I I found that a little surprising. >> Yes. >> Because flip classroom can be really helpful at times. Um but I'm not I'm not sure why they said that. Uh I don't remember exactly why. That would have been one of the times that I said, "Can you tell me more?" >> Yeah. So yeah, that was interesting to me that just another point I'd like to something I like to ask when you do this again, will it ever be a time when they answer anonymously? >> Uh no. Uh just because we are we are selecting those students and we're having those facetoface conversations. The the student engagement surveys are anonymous but student would not be. >> I have one last question please. >> Okay. Um number four of the same section students opinions around collaborative

042work versus lecture format varies widely. So definition does collaborative work mean studentled and lecture format mean teacher le? >> Yes. >> And how much of this do we do of each one? I think it's a it's a it's very it varies by teacher and it's mixed for sure. >> Okay. And uh that collaborative setting is certainly um with the teacher doing I believe you know some direct instruction for a very short time but then allowing students to work collaboratively to think about possible solutions, share their thinking and then as a large group share their processes and answers versus you know some some call sage on the stage right like teacher standing in front lecturing students taking notes and engaging in the learning in that way. It's a very different models and a wide variety of

043how that's implemented across classrooms. >> Okay. So, in the category um in which category would you place the the teacher um asking and asking and answering questions in that format. >> I think it's probably both okay. different ways. Uh say you know the lecturing is probably more traditional where you're asking one student to give their answer or their opinion or their uh thinking versus collaborative. What we see is teachers connecting the groups individually and having that conversation and bringing the whole group back together for that discussion. So the really the answer is both in both. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. I have a question for my fellow board members. If we were to go to more of a classical approach, >> would it be sage on a stage versus uh collaborative? >> Well, I

044think that um >> I think that you'd have to get a little bit of a clear definition like Jason just talked about. Um having a classical approach, a lecture style doesn't necessarily mean that you're not having back and forth. It means that you're not organizing the students into groups or modules tables with you know four to six students facing each other and discussing and then lecture model is just yeah students are all facing the teacher you're still having that discussion I mean I've been in plenty of classes that were lecture model and there was I would actually argue there was more discussion on point in those models than there was in a collaborative setting and that kind of leads into a question that I had um which is pretty broad and again I think he's

045out there a lot times I'm not expecting the answer right away depending on how broad my question is, but do we have any idea why the students preferred a lecture versus a collaboration style? Because I think that um you can prefer one or the other for very good reasons, but I think that you could also prefer a collaboration style because you can uh goof off with your friends or you can prefer a lecture style because you can kind of coast through the class and not engage as much. So, I'm curious as to like the the reasons that students said that they preferred one or the other because that seems more uh valuable to me from my perspective. >> Sure. I think I think the the answers the wise for those students really varied by the

046student, right? >> I I think of things that we heard around their confidence level, right? And and confidence with sharing in a large group and confidence sharing in a small group. I think about just their um um connectivity or connectedness to the content I think impacts that. Those are two things that rise to the top for me. >> I think it was whichever they felt more safe in. And that's really when you get to the high school level, a big thing for kids, right? I feel safer sharing in my group of four or I don't feel safe in that group of four because they're not my friends and I don't you know what I mean? So it really depended on the kid who was in the room with them and their comfort level. You know

047some people are comfortable talking all the time anywhere any place. Other kids have a need a safe place for it and that depended for the kid what it would be sometimes depending on the teacher and then the room they were in and who was in there with them. So it was a very very very different opinions but I do feel like it was what they felt safest with. >> So um couple things. First of all, was any of this teacher specific on questions or just general on the subjects? >> Just general on the subjects. >> Okay. And and so the students weren't responding necessarily to the particular teacher. >> There was one question where I asked them anyone that really had helped them feel ready for their next steps in life. And a lot of

048times then they mention teachers for that one like who's made you feel ready for middle school or high school. That was the only one where we got teacher names or teacher specific information. So to to kind of address your question from my perspective, Dan, um I'm of the school that a great teacher is going to use a combination of both collaborative and lecture style. Um and and we're talking about reaching all the learning modalities. We're talking about, you know, using everything that we have in our toolkit as teachers to make sure we're communicating with um I I think that a a really good to great teacher can effectively use the sage on the stage model. Um but can also effectively use and monitor a collaborative setting. Um, I think that t I think the collaborative

049setting is sometimes a a hard model to to to really monitor well and to assess well. Um, I think we've all been in those models because that's really the committee model, right? And um I don't know I remember being in school and and in and college in particular thinking how do I motivate the other people in this collaborative effort to get off their dumps and get something done and so that one or two people was you know weren't carrying the whole load in the classical model. I think what you have is your content and your curriculum choices may may dictate more about which model of teaching collaborative or or lecture style that you use. But I I totally agree with Chris. I think a lot of that has to do with the with the security

050of a student number one with learning style. Um an auditory learner is going to love lecture. let's be honest, they love that and then they just it's like they're like sponges, you know, and then there are others who who who feed off that in, you know, that interaction. So, um I I think the key is number one, the teacher, and number two, look, I'm of the school that a great teacher can take any curriculum and make it fabulous. But we have to keep moving people in that direction and affording them the opportunity to gain the skills to to be so they can handle that. So, I I um I appreciate the input from students. I'm going to be very candid here. Um as long as the information from the students in third grade and fifth

051grade and eighth grade aren't totally determinative on approaches, um content on these big questions because a third grader and I hear you were use the word feel. I know you're getting you're trying to get to an emotional reaction maybe more than an intellectual or reasoned response at these lower levels in in particular. Um so so I think the input's good. I just think we have to be careful how we use the input to make decisions. Absolutely. >> Okay. >> Very good. Thank you. >> Yeah. This is a very interesting topic because I used to I taught methods classes and I still teach methods class and these things you're talking about are in there and I would take a poll uh every semester about different learning with different ways of teaching and seeing which ones they

052liked in the class. Usually at that level the college level uh lecture came in last and that is attributed mainly to the age I think and to them working through and being at that age. Uh, a lot of them didn't like to sit and listen to somebody talk to them necessarily when they could be learning, researching, or doing whatever or they got lost in the in the it has to do with sometimes their own language skills where maybe they came in as a second language and lecture doesn't really do it for them sometimes. Um, but I also came to realize that it to make cooperative learning work, the teacher really has to be organized on how they set it up. It's not just go do this. It's okay. Here's here's the structure of how we're

053going to do it. And if that's that structure usually leads them to be having parts each person in that group has a part to play and when they give feedback back each person has a part to play and you also grade them accordingly not as a group but individuals. Um there's a lot of research out there right now that says that cooperative learning probably not probably but does um cause students to remember things longer. There's a more longevity in what they've learned. And I've been in classrooms when I observed where people were using that very successfully, but it was very well organized. And the students learned from other students and the students that were behind actually learned better from post somebody some other student than did the teacher. That happens quite a bit. It happened.

054That was a math class I'm thinking of. >> And uh so I'm saying what you saying as well. Um those both of those things are really important. I also found in my asking about lecture is that the really really good students like lecture. When I say really really good students, the students like to sit in and take notes and don't get out of my way. They they want to they want to listen. They want to write it down. They want to read and they want to do it and they want to get good grades and they want pulled down by somebody else. So, uh I thought that was interesting too. Just my take. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Anybody else? Craig. >> No. >> Oh. All right. Well, great great presentation. Thank you. >>

055Thank you. Yeah. >> Uh, now we're going to move to uh letter C uh WSD promotion efforts. >> Melissa. >> So, Jenny asked me to attend the meeting today to talk a little bit about our social media and how we share stories and promote programs within the school district. I'm going to advance to the next slide. Thank you. So, we are fortunate to have a very robust social media page for the school district. Um, I've also created a social media page, both Instagram and Facebook for Watertown High School as well. So, what are some of the things that we spotlight? Um, this is not a list in any order of importance or nor is it complete. Um, but we like to highlight academic achievements. Uh these could be you know students who are merit scholars,

056AP scores, uh scholarship night, all grades when exciting things are happening with student achievement. Uh we um highlight our programs. So um oftentimes you know there's so many wonderful things to promote with our CTE program with our egg program and FFA with our music program or art program. Uh unique projects. So um uh there will be times when students are you know excelling in art or another category and they're being recognized regionally or at a state level. We like to shine a spotlight on that. Extraordinary talents with students and staff. um special staff recognition days of which there are are a lot an amazing amount of staff recog staff recognition days and we like to do something special with that on social media and it does it does make the staff members happy in whatever

057department that they're being highlighted and it's always nice to see the comments of support for those people too. Um school announcements. So, um, we use our social media and collaboration with our Thrillshare and Skyward messaging if we have to push out school closings, um, any any emergency type notifications. Um, we like to highlight our staff achievements. Hopefully, you saw an article that I, um, provided to the Daily Times regarding Emily Lesner speaking at conference in July and then you'll be seeing something special about Sarah Turfy regarding the CTE program very shortly. Um, we always make sure that our board of education meeting notices are highlighted on Mondays every week. Um, I like to pop into classrooms and take just for fun photos and stop by activities and see different things happening just to share uh

058share great things happening with our kids, how we promote upcoming events. And then, um, on the district pages, um, I always try to highlight regional or statebound sports teams or athletes. um I would have a very difficult time trying to give fair coverage to every single sports team. So that's why on the district page I limit it to regional and state water athletics manages a page and they are able to highlight a lot more. So if you'll move ahead so something new we started doing last school year are our celebrations and this spun out of our strategic planning efforts. um staff uh admin administrators different people in the buildings have access to a Google doc where they can share celebrations. So I mean it could be you know something as simple as um you know

059a project that was successfully completed that we can promote or my favorite just recently was um Bubster Elementary School principal Brad Clark shared that he just celebrated a 20 3050 anniversary. So 20 years he completed his principal, 30 years working in the school district and then it was his 50th anniversary of his graduation from kindergarten at Webster last school year. So it's that type of stuff we like to highlight. So we took a little break during the summer, but I hope to um have two of these on social media every week and then every two weeks we um share them with staff so they are aware about all the great things happening as well. >> Advance. So, we have a number of communication channels that we can use to promote the school district. Um, on

060our website, we have both our news section and our live feed. So, typically anything I'm putting on social media, I'm also adding it to the live feed. And as always on the district page, and then I can tag the different school buildings where it applies. We have our um direct text and email alerts to families. Um, I started a new district-wide newsletter called the district download that I publish three times a year. So there'll be a fall edition coming out shortly after school starts. Each individual school building has its own newsletter. Um so typically while they source a lot of stories and news within their building, if I have something that's districtwide that's applicable to their school, I will share that with the building admin assistants as well. Um we're always uh pushing information out

061to the Watertown Daily Times. Of course, we have our Facebook Instagram page um and high school Facebook page and then our school district Facebook and Instagram pages. Then I just included some pictures of some um recent publicity. Hope you'll advance. Okay. So, talking about our school district Facebook page, obviously this is our our biggest reach. So, our page has um there's followers and likes on business pages. They're a little different. So, our followers, we have 7,142 followers today and about 6,100 likes. And those are just different levels of engagement. So, a follower on your page is going to, you know, constantly be seeing the information that you produce. They're people who typically are commenting and liking different things you post on your page. They're more engaged. Um, and then people who like a Facebook page,

062you know, or out there, but they not they may not be as engaged. And sometimes with business pages, they can be a little confusing. Sometimes you only have an option to be, you know, to click follow or like. I have no control over that. Um but just as an example, uh in July 2025, um our school district Facebook page had about 265 673 views. Great. Um our reach, so there's views and then reach is where you there's some engagement happening was 37,184. And then content interactions 2,772. Compare that though to May 15th through June 15th when there's a lot of end of school year activities happening. you know, we promote scholarship night. We're promoting all I mean the retirements that we promote. We highlight each staff retirement individually. I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of

063likes and comments and that's so nice. But what was really fun, which is um encouraging me to do more video this next year, is Pratt Clark filmed a helicopter landing at Webster to whisk away three retirees. There was a connection here. the helicopter company was owned by one of the retirees and that garnered 37,000 views on our Facebook page. Um one point um basically about 1,500 um likes, 182 comments, and 53 shares. So that was that was the the biggest thing we've had in the long time. And it you know the video wasn't even that great. It was just so popular the camera helicopters coming down. But I'm so glad he shared that with me. So um you can kind of see right here some of those those highlighted posts from from that particular end

064of the year time and just you know how many people do see what we're doing. If you want to advance so another um another avenue for communication that we do have available to us is direct mail. Um we typically send out a postcard for 4K registration. Uh we had sent out a postcard and a foldable mailer during the referendum. Um this is a big project and it's a big undertaking. It it has some costs associated with it, but on average to reach every household within our district, so that's covering Jefferson and Dodge counties, it's about 14,500 units of math. Gives you an idea of how much we have to produce. So typically there's a cost for printing and of course postage is very expensive. Go please. So, something new we just tried, um, it was

065an opportunity that came to us at an extremely reasonable price is digital billboard advertising. So, we had this ad up on two billboards, one on Highway 26 between Jefferson and Johnson Creek. It's a digital billboard, two-sided, and then also on Interstate 94 by County Highway F, also two-sided. So, we put together um a now enrolling new students welcome ad. Whether or not it landed us any new enrollments, I do not know. Uh, but I thought it was just a fun opportunity for some advertising and like I said, we could not pass this up at the cost it was offered to us for advance again please. So, how do we source our stories? Um, I always keep an eye on the events calendar. I try to be present at special events across all buildings whenever I

066can. Um, listen to discussions at cabinet meetings. Oftentimes I'll learn things, you know, happening there that I'll think I need to follow up on. um visiting the school buildings, uh news from schoolboard meetings, and the best way is just word of mouth. So, so much of what I go out and I cover and I take pictures of is just because someone is letting me know that something fun or unique is happening at a building or at a location during the day or evening and I have my camera and as many people in the buildings possibly see a lot of me and I run around a lot for the school district. So, if any of you are aware of something or an achievement or something happening that you would like highlighted, you just have to let

067me know. I I don't know everything. That's why I have to rely on people to help um read the information to me, >> answer any questions. >> Nice job. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thanks. >> Did I interpret it correct? That picture with Craig on there had two 202 likes. Is that correct? >> How many relatives do you have, Craig? >> No, those were comments. >> Oh. Oh. Oh, that makes more sense. Yeah. Yes. >> The uh >> Go ahead. >> Um the reason I wanted to uh broach this subject is I wanted to make WUSD attractive to prospective teachers and the parents of students who would be coming here. And I think that that especially that billboard is genius. I think that's going to work. But I'd like to hear what other people

068think about how we can promote WUSD. Okay, let me give you an example. Um, I was at uh I was at Sheron Williams and grandma stopped me. She uh was a um I think she was a par profofessional at the middle school and she said that her grandson was so good in math that while he was in middle school, 8th grade, he was taking high school courses which got him to be a senior with nothing to take. and he went to Marinatha and took calculus 3. And I thought, we gota we gotta publicize that because some parent who has a child who's really a math prodigy would have an opportunity a block away from our high school. And David, I don't know if there are more courses like that. I mean, I thought, what if

069we brought back Latin? >> Oh, wow. >> Yeah. You know, that's classical education. >> Yeah. Uh yeah, what you're talking about is exactly what we're doing at Marinata, what they have been doing, particularly online and uh or or in person even is offering courses to juniors and seniors in high school. And some of these courses are dual credit. Obviously, dual credit thing is kind of big right now. Um so yeah I think uh I can't answer for the people in the office doing this but I would say that yes they would be interested in having students come the students are already doing that. I had high school student in my methods class this past semester online that high school student. So yeah and that would be something if we can get that out there I

070think would be a track. >> Great advantage of being able to attend in person is a big deal too. >> Yes. You're talking about it being only a few blocks away is is big. >> Yes. Yes. >> I I generally like the uh digital uh segments. It'd be kind of interesting if we had like a a running like statistic like call out or highlight that that just indicate some of our top indicating uh areas of success. and just that is that's always prominently displayed regularly so people kind of see what's where where we're at with some of these areas. Another question I would have would be like for instance I I think I'm going back to slide two here. Um what area let's just say there was a let's say a policy update. what what

071particular area that you would spotlight would that fall under? >> I think um Melissa's open to suggestions about how we might update or change things. I know that she has focused her social media presence on all the positive things that are happening. But if you guys have suggestions or other things that we might want to add to that social media piece, I truly think many policy update pieces will go to families through like the handbook changes um or with our staff just through like staff meeting pieces. I don't know that we've had a conversation yet about how we would broadcast that to the greater public. Um and so I I know we're certainly open to suggestions about how we might be >> Right. Right. And and when I think about communication, that's one area where

072I I I feel like communication is pretty important that that everybody's on the same page, that they're aware. Um so that and there there are other examples of that that you know uh highlighted throughout the day or throughout the school year like if there's a a scheduling conflict with an athletic event or something like that you know those types of things need to be out there. I I I totally appreciate your point and I think it's um important for us to make sure that we target that in the right way too. Um I know one thing that Melissa didn't mention that I know she's been working really hard on is the rooms implementation um so that we're able to directly communicate with from teachers to families about really specific pieces. And I think that's a

073really great example of that. And Melissa didn't even mention the the rooms piece that has been a huge part of what she's been doing in the district in the last year or so. >> Right. And uh the other the the last part I would say that is as a concern and again I'd like the group to think about how we get more engagement with individuals to receive the feed receive more feedback. Um, and I don't know that um I mean we communicate out we don't always we don't always hear that that feedback. We we do offer enough a lot of surveys and but for some reason um you know the emails don't always come you know and and it it's nice to hear back from from uh constituents that uh uh you know are either

074positive or constructive on what we can improve upon. I don't know how we could get there. communication is real ways. >> Thank you. >> Go ahead. >> I think a lot of people are moving into this district from different states, from different communities and things. I think something um and I don't know if you check with the realtors association or who exactly you would find out who are the new new kids on the block here but uh that we would have that a welcome piece with uh given to them for them to highly consider uh the school system and the reasons why. Um and then you know per the personal testimonies always go greatest of course on that but just something for all the new people who will be in who are considering building things.

075>> Yeah. Yeah. To that one particular point to I and and I I feel like this relates to communication specifically directly. It's diversifying our communication portfolio. Uh and one of those ways that I've heard has been done in another neighbor district. They have a realer date where they come and they tour the high school and they un they get more familiarity within the high school. Uh and then they share that with other people that want to move into our community like Watertown is an excellent place to get an education, you know, and these are the programs are like our CTE programming and some of the areas that are huge highlight within our school district. Um you're absolutely right, >> Craig. It's an annual realtor breakfast that is held very very popular and it has been

076a longstanding tradition um that they bring in all area realators and it's not just area realators in that community it's area realators regionally I know it's huge >> well maybe this is the time to mention that I attended you know Dr. B and encourage us as board members to go to the I want to say Wisconsin economic development um community growth strategies 101 whatever they called it. Um the second one, apparently there were two. I went I I went to the second one and um excellent presenter from the WDA and when you're talking about Craig and what Linda was talking about was part of that. They really Main Street program the uh chamber um the various you know the RDA and some of these really want to work with the school district. They want us

077to figure out how we can find all these wonderful things to promote and how we interact with them for that promotion. There weren't it wasn't the kind of presentation where you put those those ideas out on the table. This was a stage on the stage moment. Um but it was certainly a good good for thinking about what we as a school district can do to interact and maybe we already do. Um there were I was the only school board member there but there was Main Street coordinator Stephanie uh was there. Um RDA people were there. run council for instance um and a couple more council members and some people like that that have some significant positions within that structure in the community. So, um, everybody seemed to be cooperative and understanding because it was all

078about how do we present Watertown in the bigger picture as a desirable place because we'll never grow as a school district if the community doesn't embrace the goodness that we have and help promote that and get better at who we are and what we do. So, um, it was a good it was a it was a very very interesting meeting. >> To Gain's point, when we built that new high school and the outdoor pool, we had professionals who worked in Milwaukee and Madison coming here because we had things that nobody else had. So, yeah, we're going to get >> Well, correct me if I'm wrong here, Jason and Chris. So student rounding was a new concept to me. So what what do you do today? You Google it, right? Um we were the only district

079that came up with that. I didn't see that term. It sounds to me like maybe you coined the term. >> I think round the concept of rounding is rooted in the medical field and so we've done staff rounding for a number of years but we we took it to students. Well, if this proves to be something that is truly helpful and beneficial in, you know, the scheme of of producing lifelong learners, then um see that's another thing that is is noteworthy and I only found our district referred to under that topic. So, just a kind of an anecdote. Yeah, that's that's a good selling point because I was pleasantly surprised by the responses to this more mature than I expected in some cases. >> So, you can use that. What Linda brought up is exactly

080what I was thinking too. Dan had asked us to think about these things and I was wondering what institutions out there can we send this material to that nice PowerPoint uh before people actually get here to bring them here because if you just like Julian said if you want to grow the school population you're going to have to grow the Watertown population. Uh you're not necessarily going to get them back from where they went if they went to another school necessarily right now. We need to get more people in Watertown period. And uh another thing of course is the housing market, that kind of thing. But that's that's another issue. But uh what both of you have said is I think right on point uh if we can get these out to like that realators

081thing. I was trying to think what are those people that we should get this to? Who are they? Good suggestion. >> We already have an option for that. And it reminds me to check and see what we have that we're handing out for the school district. The Chamber of Commerce provides welcome bags. Yes. Yes. >> So, all realators have a postcard that they can give to new people who moved into the city and they can go redeem them at the chamber. So, I will I haven't thought about that in a while. I used to work at that building. So, I will double check to see what's in there for the school district. And if there isn't anything, I'll make sure there is something. >> And how do we get the message to people outside of

082Watertown that may think of moving somewhere? No, let's move to Watertown. Not after they get here, but before they get here. Um, one thing I haven't experimented with that I want to start is doing some paid placement ads on social media in other communities. >> Good idea. >> And we can um, we can create those. Um, typically I never turn off comments because we're subject to open records and our Facebook posts and I either, you know, feel like we are we have them on or we have them off. It's got to be one or the other. But with with paid ads that you're placing in other communities, you can place those with comments turned off just so it's a it's a it's advertisement like you would see just like you know in a magazine or

083in a newspaper. So I'd like us to investigate doing that a little bit too, but we'd have to really talk internally about what our message would be on those ads. >> I see I see ads for schools every once in a while on TV, although that's probably pretty expensive to do. Very expensive to do. Yeah, I lost my train of thought. I had something but we can come back to it. Uh, anybody else have any comments about >> And please always make me aware of things. If if I'm aware, I'll be there. >> I remember what it was. Could either one of you talk about what rooms is for our new people that they might not understand what >> absolutely >> I and I didn't necessarily include this in this presentation because I looked at

084this as being more external rooms is very internal. Um so as part of my hiring about 16 months ago um part of this new position was to implement a a a product called Aptigy rooms. So, APG provides our website and our our thrill share messaging. Maroons is a new communication tool. It's app based and it's really to connect um students to their teachers and to their coaches and advisors. So, um you know, you can have the Watertown USD app on your phone that's for parents and students. And basically, it it's our website and an app, but then there's a component called rooms within it. And it's really kind of a cool instant messaging between um like I'm a district parent so I can use rooms to communicate with any you know admin or admin assistants

085at the high school or any of my daughter's teachers directly. So teachers through rooms can u place announcements. So if you're on social media that's like your Facebook wall or the announcements and then they can also like create messaging groups and direct message staff and parents. What's really great about it is that it's 100% secure. Um it it's all archable um and it's going to go a long way to eliminate um any staff, you know, communicating with families with a personal cell phone number or through other channels. So this we are going to um continue to submit as our primary communications tool with our district families. Um so it's Skyward um our email messaging, our thrillshare messaging, Google Classroom, those are all approved communication channels for the district because they're managed by the district. So

086this is on week soft rolled it out third trimester and fourth quarter and then rooms just went through an update which has been very challenging for me because it looks a little different to staff that it did in the fall that I trained them on but we'll all be fine. Um but going into this school year um Seesaw and other apps we were paying for a lot of different apps and it just wasn't consistent. So this is the new consistent app that will be used going forward and parents can also access it on a desktop computer as well. They don't have to have the app on. >> Okay. All right. If there's no other questions, we'll move on to the uh RMS course proposal, honors ELA 6. >> All right. I am going to just

087briefly introduce this. Um I know that Jason may need to step out because he has to be back for an interview. Um for five minutes, so we should be good. >> Okay, good. Um um this is a course proposal that is much later than we typically provide course proposals, but I think this is something that um both our community and uh Jason was interested in implementing um at our middle school level. So I will turn it over to him. I do have one programming note. We are going to skip ahead to the last topic because uh Renee Alana has joined the meeting, but I wanted to get Jason in um and then we'll go to the last topic and then we'll skip back and get the special ed topic at the very end. So Jason,

088go for it. Yeah, really quick history lesson here. About four years ago, the middle school uh implemented a uh ELA curriculum 6A called Whit Wisdom. Very rigorous uh curriculum that we've seen a great deal of success with over the last four years. and that usual like implementation gap that you may see sometimes when you're doing something different over a three-year period. we saw a like I won't say spike but like it like like our scores relatively quickly started to work their way up the way we would wanted to see the students like gut reaction the teacher's gut reaction to it is what the student was able to produce as a result of a change in curriculum uh was was night and day compared to what a student would be able to do at the end

089of it prior to that when teachers were creating their own curriculum at that point one of the problems s I guess with Witten Wisdom, it's designed for like a 180day calendar, 90 minutes per day if you're doing it fully like full fidelity and our our we we revamped the c the schedule at Riverside to make it 81 minutes a day. That being said, we found ourselves needing to from time to time pair down with like all of the bells and whistles that might be in the waiting wisdom to make it fit into a 175 calendar and 81 minutes and on Wednesday is 67 minutes, right? Um the idea came that and and and students and parents were interested in in the idea of having a a leveled option for um ELA that you could really

090teach that to full fidelity uh and not have to really pair back what you're trying to do. And so if if the students were uh interested in it, challenged by choice, and could handle the rigor, could handle the pacing of it, that that's something that we could offer a section of or more. And if 100 kids wanted to take it at eighth grade, we'd offer sections that would warrant 100 kids taking it. So last year, uh 2425, we did this in seventh and eighth grade. Um, we had 34 kids in a classroom in seventh grade, 34 kids in a classroom of eighth grade and had success with that being able to keep a brisker pace moving forward. Uh, the idea was we didn't want to propose that sixth grade last year because sixth grade is

091a transitional year. We just didn't want students the idea of maybe drinking out of a fire hose coming from fifth to sixth and now you're also running with a super brisk pace rigorous curriculum. So we just wanted to give this idea a year to see how we felt about it, see how it worked. So here we are a year later and we're here at that services that August talking about rolling down to honor six. The information on there was borrowed really heavily from the proposal for seventh and eighth grade a year earlier year and a half earlier. We do have a teacher identified to teach it. We have reached out to students and families over the summer. We generally wouldn't do it this way moving forward. Um students in fifth grade could select this in

092February, March to take in the fall. Um given that we were going to propose this later in the summer, we reached out to students that were recommended by the principles at the elementary, uh CC Bargains, the advanced learner coordinator, had some suggestions and ideas. We have, I believe, a group of 21 or 22 students that have been identified. I believe every single parent that was reached out to uh wanted to do it. >> I was at for four minutes. Sorry. Okay. four minutes. So, we're proposing um that we would bring this to resolution at the board in August um and then Jason would move forward while the middle school would move forward with um offering this class in the fall. And again, it's not typically our timeline that we go on, but I know Jason

093felt strongly about seeing a for a full year, taking a look at the data, was it successful or not? And so, um that's why it's more last minute. So essentially what we would be looking for from ed services is to say okay to bring forward for full resolution for the August board meeting. >> Great. >> Uh I I apologize. I do have a number of different reservations about this. I really um one of them being you mentioned that this this last year sixth grade was an addition year. this I I'll remind the community that sixth grade next year is going to be transitional year as well. We picked up H&M. Um and now we're trying to figure out a way to um make that align with with the new sixth grade ELA program. So that's

094a transition year in and of itself. Then then on top of it, we we've had maybe a year already of uh H um honors offered at seventh grade for for Wisdom and 8th grade. Yet, uh I'd like to think that we make datadriven decisions. I've not seen data that indicates that that that has actually been a net positive to the overall um literacy program at at RMS. The reason being when when the particular rep came into RMS and one of the reps uh and observed that we have honors course. She asked well are are you really creating an honors course or are you just creating more remedial courses? So is it an excuse to uh take a a step back in the regular course? Uh that's a reservation I have. You know, the whole course

095should be rigorous. It was designed to be rigorous. It wasn't designed to be level. If it was, they would have offered that through what they did. Um so that's another reservation I have. Um I think it's it's there's just a lot going on there in in sixth grade in general. I'm not sure. And and honors uh are we giving lottery credits or points for so then why wouldn't we call every course um an honors course, you know, and then we have an at risk uh section. I I guess that's that's where I would be. Um I'm really um the pacing that's another thing. The pacing between the honors and the regular course as I understand is exactly the same. The only difference is that the uh pacing between oh between the seventh and eighth grade

096with the honors is that the seventh and eighth grade uh honors courses offer more uh rigorous assignments and homework. It's not exactly a deviation from the regular pacing guide, you know, just a little bit more in depth. >> Can I can I respond to that part? >> Absolutely. Okay. And part part of that is intentional because we >> if if Chris Mallaloy 100% should be taking honors ELA 7 because she is academic highf flyer, right? Like she's going to run through that at the brisk pace of it's designed for like I kind of like to read and I kind of like hanging out with Chris Malloy. So I'm going to try to take a class with her after first semester if I first quarter if it's clearly too too much for me and I didn't

097have a benchmark to get into it right I'm just interested I want to do it I want to push myself and after nine weeks it's like I this is not right for me there should be a offramp for where I was taking that curriculum so that I could go to the regular honors or sorry regular ELA 7 and be able to kind of hit the ground running transitioning back into like the the the mainstream ELA course. So you're right 100% what those nine weeks look like that that ELA7 and honors ELA7 will have the depth of what's being asked of the students the conversations may assignments maybe asking more of students in that in that ELA course than in the regular course. But part of it was like the being able to parachute down from

098honors ELA to if if it wasn't the right fit for you after a quarter because there were some conversations around do you make it so that only students that have this like entry benchmark should get into it and that the the initial like thought of the class was you want kids who may not be great test takers but may but be awesome ELA students that want to challenge themselves by choice. So I mean that one part was intentional. That was that was us strategically building up to trying to do that. >> No. And and I don't I think that's a great strategy. My my reservation is that I don't want to see the rest of the program tax as a result of I think we're doing great. Jason, were you saying that perhaps some of

099the top AVID kids could then move into this? Okay. >> Yeah, there is a it's a really good question. So, um, one of the benchmarks in the AVID program is that students need to, um, take rigorous coursework and re in reality at the middle school like what you deem rigorous coursework. I mean, if a it could be in any class, right? Like like for me, taking Spanish is rigorous for me because I'm not a very good Spanish student. Um changing a light bulb might be rigorous for me to do. Um but like if you're not if you're not a strong math student four years ago, if you're not a strong that's the only level thing we had. If you're not a strong math student and you're an AVID, you really couldn't like check that box

100on the CCI saying that you were taking a rigorous course. So this does allow for another section of the population to be able to say like I have math. I can take a rigorous course. I rigorous >> and and go ahead Julen. >> No, go ahead Dan. Finish up what you got. >> Um, >> from my experience, there's really two schools of thought with this and we generally go back and forth is you want to get all the top students together because they challenge each other and learn and and Jason would learn from Chris hopefully. And uh the other school of thought is that you want to spread your good kids in all the other classes to try to bring the others up. But from my experience of teaching that higher level course, um you

101can go faster and deeper. And the kids who don't care about what's going on in the classroom, they're over here. And I subbed in a class where there was one of those upper level kids because he wanted to take more music courses in with the other kids that didn't care so much and he was lost. He just you could see it in his face. I think it I like the idea of having that upper level honors course and even if the kids were borderline and got a B or a C and they're usually A students, they still benefited from learning from their peers. So that's just my thought. Jula, you want >> Well, I just want to make sure I understand wit and wisdom is the ELA program across the board. And so the the

102honors program for the sixth graders would be an opportunity for as someone has mentioned more aggressive assignments and more in-depth work. But the pacing remains the same as you explained so that if they need to bail to to make sure they make progress without being totally frustrated that they can drop back into the standard standard class of ELA. The idea is like in an honors ELA class, closer to 100% of the curriculum as intended, the assignments, the collaborative opportunities are being taught. In the traditional ELA class, I'm making a number, right? But the number might be 75 or 80%. and some instructional decisions have to be made to be able to fit that that robust content into a into a mold that is 81 minutes a day for 175 understanding that you can't get to

103everything that you may want to get to with a more wide range of abilities in your class. >> Yeah. The document that was submitted says that it's 80% um coverage typically and that what gets left out is the informative research component most typically and that would be added in and if I'm understanding this correctly if the um honors class was added. So I think yeah >> in in the past we've tried to remedy that by having our science and social studies teachers have a lesson that would cover that part of it because they're not going to get to it in the same way in any way. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Y >> So what should I do? Well, are we comfortable moving it forth for a resolution in August and we could have continued

104discussion there? If there are other questions that come up in between, I know Jason would be happy to support answering them or our co-principles Leanne and Mike would be happy to. >> Yeah, I'd be happy to move it forward for resolution as a as a committee member. >> Okay, >> David. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> It's unanimous. >> Moving that forward. We will have a resolution on the August board meeting. Okay. And then in our uh agenda, I'm going to skip forward to the last agenda item. Thank you, Jason. I'm sorry if I made you late. >> Um the parent opt out and parent opt in. Um Renee Albana has joined us um as well for the conversation. Um I know that this um Hi Renee, I see you. I just put you on the

105big screen. Um I know this conversation um is taking place in kind of a couple of different places. Uh first the conversation at the policy committee level especially as it relates to sort of controversial issues in the classroom. Um we were asked to place this on the ed services agenda in light of the Supreme Court decision at the end of June uh Muhammad v. Taylor, which outlines a parents right to um ask for an opt out for curriculum that relates um or may be in conflict with their own personal religious views. Um I'd have Rene to answer questions if possible, but I just want to give a kind of a brief overview. I think the place that we start is with that controversial issues in the classroom policy. And in that policy, I know that

106there has been uh language added as well. Um, if I believe correctly, this has not been brought forward for a first read. This is still at our policy level, um, committee. Um, but there was language added here where the, uh, kind of taken directly from that Supreme Court decision, um, where giving parents the, um, option of opting out of some of the materials that they may find objectionable or in conflict with their own religious beliefs. Uh Renee did put together for us a form that I'm displaying now. Um we would likely brand this a little better with Melissa's help. Um but this is the request for religious accommodation or opt out. This form would be made available to families um on our website. And to me, this is sort of a jumping off point for

107conversation with a family, the principal, and then any teachers that student might have. So, if a family had a concern about something that might be taught in our curriculum that they could fill this form out, submit it to um the school and have a conversation of starting a conversation with the principal and with the staff member um so that we ensure that we're giving parents that option of opting out of any of those um activities that they would find to be objectionable. Um the district does have to offer an alternative activity or an accommodation. um as a part of that and you can see that the parent has that as a request as well. Um in our controversial uh um issues in the classroom policy, it does outline um as sort of a second step

108outline that teachers need to make families aware ahead of time if there are going to be any topics that are taught in the classroom that are controversial and at that point offer an opt out um for families as well or notify them and then the families can request an opt out at that time as well. So, it's kind of twofold. First, um just the general request for an opt out and then second, um teachers notifying families if there's a controversial issue that is being taught in the classroom. Renee, do you have anything that you would like to add to that um before we open that discussion up for uh the ED services committee? >> Not at this point. I think that's a thorough description. >> Was that audio? >> I'm getting a little bit of

109an echo. I'm going to just >> because the sound is on at on all three. >> Ah, got it. That's an easy fix. Thank you. Good catch. That I'm going to go grab another remote and then I'll mute the other one. >> Is that better? >> Tiny bit. But >> the sound is on on all three TVs and so you're echoing right now. Can you give us just >> All right, give it a shot now. >> Is that better? >> Way better. Thank you. Is it better? One more remote. It's a good thing we have three TVs in here. >> All right. Now try >> better. >> No, I'm still Am I getting a spell? >> Hold on. Say something again, Rene. >> One more time. >> It's getting better. >> It should just come

110through the normally through the >> Now try. Hold on. >> Testing. >> Can you turn that TV off? >> Well, here what I can I can turn the album all the way down and we'll just hear it TV. Okay, now try Rene. >> Is this better? >> Yeah. >> Perfect. >> Excellent. I All I said was that that's a thorough description. the planed has lots of options next steps. >> All right. Um, any questions or thoughts about that? And again, I know this will be a topic of conversation at the policy meeting tomorrow night as well. Um yeah, Renee, could you remind us uh because I think we had this discussion recently um what effective notice would be uh in that's on page two uh in that bottom green highlighted paragraph. Uh it says teachers

111shall provide effective notice to parents in advance of controversial issues being instructed in the classroom. So the board has amount of in terms of how you're going to give notice looks like recent decision regarding specifics and was very clear many of these issues control and so this is one of and I think one of the thing I is that the Supreme Court is Supreme Court ificant differences >> between districts >> um in terms of >> and so >> there's an ability for >> what our community >> and how >> and then go from there. >> Okay. So essentially a local control decision. Rene, it's just a little spotty. You coming through the TV. >> That's why I'm waiting for stop. >> I appreciate it. Uh, so a local control decision. Um, and I don't think

112that there's anything specifically outlined in the policies that is like a specific number of days. Um, our intent would be um to share information regarding this policy with our staff at back to school. Um, I realize it's not been through a first read at the board level yet. Um, but given that it's August, I think it's important for our staff to know that where we're at with this policy so that they have an understanding though it's not it won't be an official policy once the school year starts. However, the Supreme Court uh case still um whether or not this policy is in place, the Supreme Court case still applies. So, it's important for our staff to be aware of that. >> Sure. Um yeah uh I think uh developing uh a method there will be

113good. This is a great start. Um determining how we're going to signal out ahead of time to families about uh controversial issues I think will be important of course but uh I suppose that will come with time. um maybe developing like a minimum time you know like 10 days uh forms of communication by which you can make that noticed. Obviously I think the ideal would be for those things to be contained like we were talking about the course guides the curriculum and course guides on the website. Having those things on the curriculum and course guide would probably be for the best. Um and obviously we're going to talk more about some of this at uh policy tomorrow night. I did include um some examples I found from other districts of ways that they're handling um

114their versions of 2240, the controversial issues uh policy. And so I have some uh supportive documents and things like that that are ideas there, but that might be more geared towards policy. So um I don't have any questions currently. I think this is a great change and I think that we're moving in the right direction with this. I think it's something that parents have been asking for for a long time, for at least the past four or five years, and looks good to me. Okay, Craig. >> Um, to Sam's point, um, I think that I I I did see I did see among the list of other, uh, suggestions for policy at least that there was an administrative guideline there that was indicated. I think that I would be eager to see and anticipate that

115effective notice might be addressed in um an administrative guideline uh that would accompany this also help spell things out. But so far I think this is a step in the right direction. One thing on the um the religious accommodation um permission no it's a request um I think adding legal guardian or foster parent um would be crucial because not you know it's going to be whoever that person is in that home that is with that child right then and there otherwise there might be some things that might slip through the cracks or gaining two signatures, you know, depending if that child's back with a bio parent or not as well, just so that all bases are covered. >> I know when we're working with foster, you're >> sure I was going to say something. So

116a legal guardian or parent covers the foster situation because they are then the custodial um of that child and they have the right to sign on any documents and that is written in the law. >> So updated to reflect guardian. >> So who gets to determine what's controversial parents? I mean the teacher needs to know that this might be controversial in order to inform the parents. >> Well, if you look at uh policy 2240, it does provide you with uh it does provide you with a definition of controversial issue. A topic on which opposing points of view have been promulgated by responsible opinions or and or are likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community. These issues may range across a wide spectrum of political, social, economic and religious topics. So um if

117we talk about uh methods of making pizza in a cooking class, you might be an individual who feels very strongly about you know uh whether or not Chicago style deep dish is considered pizza or something. I don't know. Um but that's >> You mean there's something beyond frozen pizza? There's not that's not necessarily considered a controversial issue though because it has to be um a topic on which opposing points of view have been promulgated by a responsible opinion and or are likely to arouse both support and opposition in the community. Right? And although there may be people who hold differing opinions on something that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of controversial issue, I think that the level of discourse that surrounds it is what defines a controversial issue. Yeah, it may change >> depending

118on the time and era. >> Okay. And um we're asking the parents on that form to select an alternative >> or suggest I think that that's a in my mind um with the form it is uh >> to me this form starts a conversation right to me this form you turn it in you're having a conversation with the principal potentially the teacher and or teachers that it involves um so that we better understand what it is that the family has a concern ern about and we can better address what that is. So to me this isn't about like just turn this form in and end of story. To me it starts a conversation. Um and it's the you know on the responsibility of the parent for us to start to to let us know if

119there's a concern or an area of concern. Um, to your point, there may be something that a family wants to opt out on that may not register as an issue for one of our teachers, but if we start this conversation with the principal, with the teacher, so that the there's a better understanding, um, I think that that is the place where that starts in my opinion. >> Okay. >> So, allow me to play a devil's advocate a little bit on this form. uh if you have one parent that wants a child to opt out but then you have another parent that wants a child to participate what do we do? >> It's a good question because we end up in situations like that often >> again I believe that it becomes starts to become a

120conversation Renee I would turn to you and say how would you handle that if we have a situation where one parent wants in and one parent wants out. Well, >> well that we handle and I can still hear >> feedback. I don't know if it's just >> it's better here. So, if you can keep going. I can't figure out how to mute that. >> Try Renee, try muting us while you speak. >> Oh, >> that might turn your volume down on your computer, but don't mute your microphone. >> Oh, >> yes. technology >> nut. >> Let's see. >> Okay. >> Oh, that's better. Thanks. >> That's better. Thanks. >> Okay. So, >> it's different in different context. >> So, there are other times in other context. This is very likely different because of a lot

121of different sources that we look to regarding parents in this particular context. So I think it's important to note that it's going to be different here than for example special education >> and so might decide that there's two parents one says yes and one says no but you're going to honor the objection >> the objection. My guess is that's the direction that you're going to go. It would be consistent with the guidance that we've received from the Supreme Court as of late. Um then what you do form itself there's this is again a starting point and nothing else. There's nothing about it that's been in it should be revised as appropriate. So, for example, the definition the legal definition includes all of those things, but you want you want to be more specific and that's

122appropriate. So, other things you might determine you want to be more specific about, questions you want to ask, prompts that you want to include. There really is an opportunity to um supplement the form and make it work for you. Thank you, Rene. >> Okay, anybody else? >> Before we move topics, I do, if there's no questions about this specifically, I also included um the sample human growth and development consent form um that Renee did prepare for us. I'm going to go ahead and share my screen with that as well. Um I believe that we um uh completed the second read of human growth and development uh policy and within that it talks about rather than opting out it is a consent form that we would be asking families to fill out. So here is the

123sample of that form. Um my intent would be to send this form with uh before it is taught in the classroom and ask for parents um to send consent back. Um we may try to figure out how we might be able to do this uh electronically or a policy or a system that will be easier um because this will be um a different procedure than we've used in the past. And so we just want to ensure that we have a a procedure that's as efficient as possible and where we're not putting a lot of burden on the classroom teacher necessarily to be sorting and getting all of these back. Um I can tell you it is sometimes challenging to get permission forms back. Um and so we will need to come up with a procedure

124that will work. But I just wanted to bring your attention to that as well. Um because I do know that policy did go through its second read um and would be implemented as of July. Awesome. >> Questions or concerns about that? >> I think it looks great. Um, and I think that your idea about making it electronic would be really useful. You could even uh have it set up so that you click on the curriculum like open the curriculum, close it, then you can have the sign access or something so that you know they've actually looked at the curriculum. Um, and it kind of covers your bases. >> You could do that during the registration process because it would be a a point where they would have to complete it in order to complete registration.

125And then you can even put that curriculum piece in there, the link to it. >> That'd be great. >> That'll be in next year. >> Hey, it's a it's a great start moving in the right direction. >> Yeah. And I do appreciate the idea of electronic because I know myself and I'm much more likely to like click on a link if it's comes to my email than use a QR code if it comes uh as a paper pencil. So, >> all right. Any questions about either of those two things? I should let you ask that question. D. Sorry. Are there any questions about either? >> Um, I only have one other question and it's only slightly related. Uh, Renee, are you going to be joining us tomorrow night for further discussion of 2240? >> I

126had not yet received, but you should let me know if that helpful. >> Well, I I'd be happy to invite you as long as as long as you're available. Uh, 5:30 is when we uh when the meeting starts. >> All right. I will talk to Jared about that and get you the link, Rene. >> Thank you. And sorry for the sound piece. Usually I get those muted before we start, but didn't happen today. Sorry about that. >> All right. And then, well, I'll let you do this part. Sorry. >> And then >> you can't see her moving, but okay. The uh we're going to special ed policy and procedures. So everything that we do in special education is based in the law and this is the packet of law and definitions. Um every year we

127have to do an annual um update which technically means we are putting a new date on the special education procedures. This is the updated version. There have not been any changes to the law for quite some time which has been good. So this is completely good sound based in law. We put the new date on it and it moves forward. All of the definitions in the 88 pages um are what we currently use in special education. Everything from the procedures of how we have an IEP team pulled together to um different placements to options to how we serve our kids is all based in here. Our parents also receive their safeguards and their notices uh annually during all of their IEP uh meetings and ahead of time. So, what we would be asking is to

128put a resolution on the August uh board meeting for the um school district to or the school board to accept these um policies and procedures. >> All right. And do we have any is there anyone who has any questions or anything about this? As Sarah pointed out, it's rather >> very specific. Yes. >> If you ever have a question about special ed, man, all the answers are in here. It's good reading. >> You know what it it is a nice Sunday morning, a cup of coffee and your special education procedures. >> Definitely with the coffee. >> Were you falling asleep a little bit, Lori, when you were >> I had my coffee. >> I don't know. I have to give that a quick thumbs up. >> I always joked you were in the right job

129and you enjoyed reading this. And it is actually >> It is. It's so fun. You're a very good liar. >> Rene Renee knows that I love this. I love the law. >> We love it. We really do. >> I do. I'm such a Yeah, it's good. >> Yeah, it looks fine to me, too. I don't think uh have any issues with that. You want to hold it back now? Okay. >> Yeah, we're ready to go ahead with that, then. >> All right. Excellent. Thank you. Okay. So, we are down to action items. >> Excellent. >> Okay. >> I have a few um move the sixth grade advanced ELA um to uh resolution for August. Also move the special ed policies and procedures for resolution in August. Um Lori, I made a note that I'm happy

130to meet with you and go over the curriculum guide piece if if you're interested. So, I just wanted to kind of like get a thumbnail on the timeline, so it's it's all good. >> Excellent. Um, and I did not have any other specific action items. Did I miss anything? >> What was the first one you stated? >> Uh, the advanced ELA um, yeah, >> course proposal on August uh, resolution. >> Okay, I think that's it. Anybody? >> No, that's everything for me. So, let's talk about the future agenda planning. I know that uh we've talked a little bit about um coming up with a plan to deal with bullying and I know Linda you indicated some experience there. So, uh sometime we'd like to talk a little bit more about it. Again, it it's because

131uh policy says one thing, but we need an actual plan to accomplish that. So, >> and that's the last item on our future agenda items, behavior plan update September 2025. Um that might be an opportunity to uh u ask administration if it would be appropriate to pick uh uh AP Dietrich's mind about other possibilities and other um that other communities or other experiences that he's had in that particular area. the hope program. I think you you mentioned >> hope squad is for suicide prevention. >> Yeah. Um Okay. >> So, we have all of the data regarding last year. Um I looked over at Chris is already gone. We have the data regarding last year and we have um crafted our plans for what it looks like moving um forward. Uh and so all of that

132is ready to go for September as well. >> Awesome. I look forward to that discussion. So, we're going to have the behavior update in September. And Jenny, you were going to invite the principles that were >> I'm inviting the Yeah. the deans and the associate principles. Um that >> and um well, Mike Cunningham, who is now interim, you know, co-principal. We got to get these labels correct. Um so, they can talk a little bit more about what they have been doing and what their plans are moving forward. >> Good. Good. Anybody else comments? >> Uh just Sarah, do you have do you think we'll have enough information to give an update on the cell phone project uh next month? >> So that's going to go to central office for discussion as we talked a little

133bit about yesterday uh to move forward and then any data that would come from any sort of pilot coming out of that would be um available probably after first trimester and so it's going to take a little bit of time. >> That's okay. Thank you. Okay. >> My question is, is there what is there a policy in place already about bullying? >> Yes, >> I figured there would be. >> Yeah, >> I think we voted on it at the uh last board meeting for the second of suspected. The school will determine if their behavior violates. >> In fact, that policy is fairly new. >> It's been revised. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We added a few things in before the last vote, but that last vote was second read. So, if you go I mean I

134can show it to you right after the >> Okay. >> Maybe I can't show it to you. I'll I'll email a link to it, too. >> Could you include me in that? >> Yeah, sure. >> I think what's important is what bullying is and what it is not. What is mean behavior versus what is bullying? Because I think people like to use the term bullying a lot. Oh, yeah. >> Um but it needs to be um targeted, specific over time and in a power situation. >> So, it's it's very specific. you were talking about this is a pulling procedures and so forth you're going to do and I thought certainly you already had something. >> Sure we did. >> Yeah. >> State law requires. >> Yeah. >> So kind of the the contrast is so

135we have a policy and then policy is one side that's like here's in writing what our standards are and then ed services is for implementation of standards and for implementation of curriculum and adoption of curriculum and stuff like that. >> Good. Thank you. Okay. I think we can adjourn at 9:20. >> All right. >> So, thank you everybody. >> Very good. >> 10 minutes to start. >> Yeah. How about that? I can >> I will miss four screws now. >> What? >> Yeah. Melaton ready.